I’m allergic to mushrooms. No. That’s a lie. I just don’t like them. Wait. That’s not true either. It’s just that I never had a good mushroom until I started cooking professionally way back on Tuesday. Until that point, mushrooms presented themselves in all their inedible splendor, slithering around in a self-created, ashen slime-sample. How could I say no?
Hence the lie – it is much easier to feign allergy then to explain that you just prefer not to eat something that is in the same kingdom as several forms of toenail rot.
I’ve come around.
I love the little fungi, now that I’ve had them cooked properly.
“Properly” is quite a simple method that works for most mushrooms. Start with a hot pan. I mean a HOT pan. Is your pan hot enough? Probably not. Cook with some balls, for once. Ok, hot now? Working quickly (so you don’t start a spectacular oil conflagration), pour a few tablespoons of veg oil into the pan and immediately add the mushrooms (sliced or not, depending on size). Salt lightly. Now, wait. Don’t flip them; don’t shake the pan; try not to stare as this will make them self-conscious. After a minuet or two you will notice a change in the pitch of the pan sizzle and a deep, roasty aroma. Add a crushed clove of garlic and a knob of butter. When the butter starts foaming, toss the mushrooms and season again. Only now may you reduce the heat. Try to keep the butter foaming without browning – too hot and it will stop foaming and burn, too cool and it will stop foaming and become a sodden mess. When colored all over tip onto paper towel to drain excess butter; remove garlic.
Scummy, pallid, flaccid mushrooms happen when you stew them instead of roasting them, i.e. your pan isn’t hot enough.
Let’s put this into practice.
Pan roasted Kingfish with a Sauté of Pine Mushrooms on Saffron-Infused Celeriac Puree
1 lovely, 180 g chunk of sashimi quality kingfish
100 g wild mushrooms (in my case pine mushrooms, native to OZ)
1 tsp chopped parsley
1 clove garlic
1 small head celeriac
pinch saffron
butter
Heat oven to 200º C (400º F). Peel celeriac and cut into small chunks. Place in a pot, cover with lightly salted water and bring to a boil. When cooked through (test with a knife, it will be soft, much like a cooked potato), remove from heat. While still hot, remove the celeriac from the water using a slotted spoon and transfer to a blender. Add saffron and blend, adding a couple tablespoons of cold butter in small chunks, incorporating each bit before adding the next. Use enough of the cooking liquid to form a smooth puree. Keep warm.
In a small pan on medium-high heat cook Kingfish until skin begins to brown and crisp. Transfer pan, fish still skin-side down, to oven. Roast for 6-8 min, until medium rare.
Meanwhile sauté mushrooms according to instructions above. Jesus, how many times do I have to tell you to use a hot pan? Toss cooked mushrooms with chopped parsley.
Assemble using the photo as a guide. You can do it. I believe.
On Fungus
Consummatio Cena
You will, I hope, forgive my poor grasp of Latin. I “studied” the gone-but-not-forgotten language in University and passed the subject only by employing a complicated system of begging and bullshitting. As far as my subsequently limited understanding goes, the above can read a number of ways, two of which are as follows: “Final Supper” and “Consummate Meal.”
I have no impending intentions of munching my last, please understand. I have, however, thought about what I would choose, were I forced to. I’m not alone in this macabre mind meal; 50 chefs recently contributed their final dinner choices in an aptly titled cookbook “My Last Supper.” I haven’t read the entire book but, of what I have read, there are some extravagant requests contained therein.
I, on the other hand, do not want lobster, nor foie gras, or Perigord truffles. My last meal, my consummate meal, the meal I cook whenever I am exceptionally hungry, or a bit down, for a celebration, eating alone, on rainy nights, entertaining friends, feeding my loved ones, or when I just don’t know what else to cook, is so achingly simple. It is nothing short of perfection.
My Roast Chicken
1 whole chicken
2 large lemons
1 clove garlic, peeled
6 sprigs thyme
3 tablespoons butter
Heat oven to 200º C (400º F). Pick a nice, organic, free range chicken. Not that crap you usually buy. Dry the bird inside and out with a towel. Crush a clove of garlic and place it inside the cavity along with a couple sprigs of thyme and lashings of sea salt and cracked pepper. Wash and quarter the lemons and, using whatever force necessary, insert them into the cavity of the chicken. Truss the bird (though not absolutely; the second you completely truss a chicken they turn on you, mark my words).
Massage room-temperature butter into the skin of the chicken. It won’t stick at first; persist with the rubbing and eventually it will form an even coat. Liberally salt and pepper the entire skin of the bird.
Place the bird on a roasting rack on one of its wings. Roast 20 minuets. Flip the chicken onto its other wing and roast another 20 minuets. Turn the fowl onto its breast for an additional 20 minuets. Finally, place the chicken on its back and roast until the skin is dark and crisp and, when pierced at the thigh joint, the juices run clear.
Remove from oven, sprinkle with leaves of thyme stripped from three sprigs, and rest 10 minuets in a warm place. While it is resting you can make a bit of gravy out of the pan juices, but I prefer to just squeeze some of the roasted lemon over the meat. Carve, and, whilst doing so, be sure to flip and retrieve the two chicken oysters for yourself. Cook’s treat. Don’t know where the oyster is? Boo-hoo. More for me.
Serve with whatever the hell you want. I sometime grill medallions of polenta, or steam some greens, or roast some potatoes and whole garlic cloves and shallots in their skins under the bird to catch all those chicken-fatty, lemony delectables. The point is the chicken is the main event. Don’t fuss over the rest; no one cares.
Also, don’t bother with cutlery. This is a bone-gnawing, sticky-palm affair. Fork-wielding sissies need not apply.
So, that’s the only thing I plan on asking for when one of my oft-abused dishhands finally snaps and, brandishing a spatula and an oyster knife, corners me in the bleary-eyed cleanup hours, cowering amongst the wooden spoons and ladles. A simple roast bird is all I need.
Oh, and a bottle of Bollinger 1981 R.D. Just for fun.
Eleventy Grain Breakfast
As a general rule, chefs don’t eat breakfast. Sure there are exceptions. Breakfast chefs, for example. The exception there, obviously, is that egg-flipping doesn’t make you a chef, you brainless hashbrown monkey. Eat what you want. Another exception: I’ve been known to consume ham and cheese croissants in the manner one would, say, breathe. But that’s ham, a well documented 24-hour food that clearly transcends breakfast. No, our collective chefy stomachs have been starved of a.m. nutrients and pummeled with late night crap so consistently we’ve been left virtually incapable of downing anything aside from coffee before 1 p.m. It’s physics.
It will surprise you then, I imagine, that sometimes I, if I move quickly enough once I am out of bed, manage to trick my stomach into eating a bowl of what is a down-right healthy and delicious home-made cereal.
5 Grain Maple-Toasted Cinnamon and Hazelnut Muesli
500 g rolled oats
500 g rolled wheat
500 g rolled barley
500 g rolled rye
500 g rolled triticale
250 ml (1 cup) maple syrup
100 ml vegetable oil
1 heaped tablespoon ground cinnamon
250 g currants
250 g dried apricot, diced
100 g coconut flakes, lightly toasted
100 g almonds, peeled, roasted and roughly crushed
100 g hazelnuts, peeled, roasted, and roughly crushed
Mix all grains. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, maple syrup, and cinnamon and then pour over grains. Toss to coat. Toast coated grains in shallow trays in a 160º C (320º F) oven for about an hour, stirring every 15 minuets. Grains should taste slightly crunchy and be dry to the touch. Cool. Mix with remaining ingredients.
Serve with milk or on yogurt with honey and fruit.
Seriously. 5 grain, dairy free, no refined sugar, triticale for the love of Christ. I’ll be a macrobiotic breakfast chef posting on a militant vegan anti-shower website in no time. I give myself a week.
Uncle Ben Has Twisted Your Minds
Halfway through a recent Saturday lunch service, about the time when my docket rail fills up completely and communication in the kitchen is reduced to a series of monosyllabic shouts and sharp gestures, I nearly lost it.
A middle aged woman with a broad, toothy smile darted her head under the heat lamps and into the kitchen, unnecessarily waving a hand to get the attention of the chefs who were already staring at her in a mixture of horror and disbelief (note to self: erect a sign reading “Do Not Disturb The Chefs In Their Natural Habitat). “Excuse me….”
American.
That she was American was revealed, yes, by her accent, but even more telling was her combination of white sneakers, white socks, and safari-tan half-length pants. Greater than shorts, not nearly trousers, henceforth referred to as “shants,” as in: “Hon’ where the heck are my shants? There’s a sale at ultramart and, gee, if I can’t get dressed we’re gonna miss right out, you know?”
I’m particularly aware of Americans in the restaurant (and all of Australia) because, being an American myself, I am somehow at fault whenever one of them makes an odd request (often) or does something rude (more often). Guilt by association.
“Just checking on two duck specials.” Ms. Shants looks at me. The chefs look at me. The bar staff, my dish hand, the first year apprentice. Quickly scanning the dockets I arrive at hers, next in line to be plated. “It’s next.” Then I look at the time the order was taken. 1:17. It is now 1:35. That’s 18 minuets. She ordered two serves of duck. Half a duck each, twice cooked, crispy skin, pearl barley and mushroom risotto, apple and walnut salad. 18 minuets, evidently, was too long for all of this; so long that Ms. Shants thought she better personally make sure that the kitchen hadn’t forgotten her.
Now I am “Angry Chef”. I’m finishing her risotto with a touch of butter and thinking about euphemisms for “really fucking irritated.” “Seeing red” comes to mind, and that combined with the risotto I’m plating gets me thinking about the red box of instant rice that always lurked in our cupboard when I was growing up. It could be the rage talking, but maybe Uncle Ben has something to do with this.
A bit of history. 1930’s Uncle Ben’s Converted (parboiled) Rice is first marketed in New Orleans. In 1942 Uncle Ben secures a contract to supply his rice to the army (and as you know, army rations are the golden benchmark of fine dining). By the early ‘50’s Ben is the national sales leader in rice. Fast forward to 1988, with the introduction of “Boil in Bag Rice.” Jump again to 2004 and Uncle Ben gives us “Ready Rice,” advertised as ready in 90 seconds.
Listen people, please. Rice, real rice, tasty, slightly sticky, aromatic, nutty, firm, fluffy, steamed rice, takes 20 minuets to cook. That’s it. About 8 minuets longer than your average noodle. Have a bowl of basmati rice side by side with the parboiled stuff and I promise you’ll never look back.
And that’s not even my point. Food takes time to cook. All sorts of delicious chemical reactions are going on in there – starches breaking down into sugars which in turn caramelize, connective tissue and fat melting out of and flavoring meats, proteins setting, general flavor infusing – and all these reactions take time. I’m not saying you should spend three hours at the stove every day, but for the love of sweet, crunchy, baby Jesus, 90 seconds?
Uncle Ben has twisted your minds; McDonald’s has warped your perception like some sort of special relativity, caused, no doubt, by burgers approaching you at nearly the speed of light. People expect food to be ready instantly, like some sci-fi phaser-in-bag cafeteria.
18 minuets too long for a half a duck? It’s a frickin’ kitchen miracle that we can get it done so quickly. We spent all bloody morning preparing it so that we could do it in 20 minuets. Why don’t you say: “Wow, I couldn’t cook this at home in less than an hour, this is amazing!”
Nonetheless, the two duck specials were finally served.
Moments later Ms. Shants was back at the pass, presumably to apologize and let the kitchen know that it was definitely worth the (admittedly short) wait. “Do you have a selection of sauces for the duck?”
Christ.
Anyway, I made this meal in, like, seconds.
Spaghetti Omelet
200 grams leftover cooked spaghetti
2 eggs
¼ cup parmesan, grated
¼ cup sharp cheddar, grated
Heat a pan over medium heat. Mix eggs into noodles. Salt and pepper generously. Mix cheeses in, avoiding large lumps of cheese forming. The mixture should be wet but not too loose; add an extra egg if necessary. Pour a tablespoon of olive oil into the hot pan and immediately fill with the noodle mixture. Omelets should be about 3 cm (1½ in) thick. Fry until omelet is uniformly golden and crispy in places, flip, and serve when cooked through.
In Naples this is called “Frittata di Spaghetti.” I was introduced to the dish via the tiny island nation of Malta, by my wife, who is half Maltese and half Australian mongrel. The Maltese filtering explains the use of a quintessentially English cheese in a regional Italian dish – the Maltese, once conquered by the Italians, stole the dish, then, later ruled by the Brits, stole a nation’s cheese.
Tastes good at any rate.
The observant among you may have noticed a bottle of Franks Red Hot in the background of the above image. My wife insists on ketchup, I cannot live without Frank’s as an accompaniment. The only problem is that Frank’s is impossible to get on this continent. The primitive Australians, with their pathetic little cities and laughable society, have mastered fire, sure, but not the fiery goodness of cayenne pepper sauce. I import the stuff at a great cost to my parents.
Pie
Pie. Meat Pie to be more precise. If there is a national Australian dish, this is it. Australians love meat pies. They eat about 330 million a year. That’s about 15 per Australian. I’m counting babies and old people with no teeth in those figures, discount them and were talking about a population that eats something like half it’s average body weight in pies annually. It’s the Aussie answer to the hotdog. Eaten at sporting matches, languishing in hot boxes in every convenient mart, sold from 24-hour roadside stands to hapless drunks stumbling home through the pre-dawn glow, desperate for grease to quell the angry sea of grain and grape within which threatens, at any moment, to capsize their tiny, shattered vessel.
The most famous of meat pie merchants in Sydney is Harry’s Café de Wheels. Like Pink’s Hot Dogs in L.A., Harry’s is a former mobile vendor. They both serve up the country’s respective favorite with considerable mediocrity to a seemingly endless queu of blank-eyed junkfood slackers (trust me, I eat at Harry’s a lot and every time I go, I mean every time, I can’t beat a conversation out of anyone). These pastry parcels are filled with unidentifiable meat byproducts clutched together by an unnaturally glossy, deep-brown, quivering paste. This bounty is served atop mash – either reconstituted potato or loooong-cooked peas (pea mash is the classic style, order the “Pie Floater” and sound as if you know what the hell you are talking about, you junkfood slacker).
My pie, I hope, is nothing like that.
Chicken, Mushroom, and Tarragon Pie
1 chicken thigh and drumstick, skin on, bone in
1 small brown onion, fine dice
1 carrot, peeled, fine dice
1 clove garlic, cracked (not crushed; I’m going to have you fish this out later)
1 rasher bacon, diced
50 ml white wine
250 ml chicken stock
1 bay leaf
500 g mixed mushrooms, trimmed, sliced
1 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
puff pastry
1 egg yolk
1 Tbsp milk
Generously salt and pepper the chicken. Dredge chicken in flour, shake and pat to remove excess. In a deep-sided pan with a tight-fitting lid on moderate heat melt a tablespoon of butter and brown meat on all sides. Remove from pan. Add onion, carrot, garlic, and bacon. Sweat without colouring until onion softens, about 8 minuets. Add the white wine, bring to a boil and reduce until nearly all the liquid is gone. Return chicken to the vegetable pan with the bay leaf and chicken stock. Cover pan tightly and braise in a 160ºC (325º F) oven 1 ½ - 2 hours, until meat is just beginning to fall from the bones. Uncover and allow to cool slightly.
Meanwhile, working in small batches, sauté the mushrooms in a hot pan lightly coated with oil.
When the chicken is cool enough to touch, remove it from the braising liquid. Strain the liquid and return it to the stove. Simmer to reduce the liquid by half. Carefully pick all the chicken meat off the bones, taking care not to break it up too much. Gently mix meat with the mushrooms, the reserved vegetables from the braise – removing the clove of garlic and the bay leaf (go fishin’ boy) – the reduced liquid, and the tarragon. Season.
Line two greased individual pie tins with puff pastry, leaving about 2 centimetres (1 inch) hanging over the edge. Fill with chicken mix and top the pie with more puff pastry, crimping the edges together to form a seal. Poke a few holes in the top so the little sucker can breathe. Brush top with an egg wash made from 1 yolk and 1 tablespoon of milk.
Bake in a 180º (350º) oven 30 – 40 minuets or until the bottom of the pastry begins to crisp. You may need to cover the top crust with foil after 15 or 20 minuets to prevent it from browning too much.
Serve on buttery mashed potatoes and steamed peas.
Clam Chowder
or
How a Bowl of Soup Became an American Heart Foundation Nightmare
8:37a.m. Wake to rain. A phone call actually. For the love of god people it's my day off; let me sleep. Anyway, I'm awake and it's raining.
9:20 Decide freezing drizzle = clam chowder.
10:30 Local fish shop isn't open yet. Gather vegetables like primitive, grunting. Onion, ungh, celery, ungh, garlic, thyme, bay, ungh. Trying to think of a soup that doesn't involve these veggies. Can't. Probably need a coffee.
11:00 "What do you mean you don't have any clams?"
1:00 Fish shop in china town. "So, you're completely out of clams?"
2:00 Break for lunch - much needed, double scoop gelato.
3:30 Finally clams!
4:00 Home. Wait, no potatoes.
4:30 Return home. Damn. Bread.
5:00 Return home. Shit. Cream.
5:15 Oooooh. Double cream is on sale for half the price of single cream. Using my superhuman math skills, that's, like, four times as much fat for the price of one.
5:30 Return home.
5:45 This is going to need bacon. (Luckily, I was a boy scout and therefore always have bacon.)
6:00 Lardons are slowly crisping, all the vegetables are diced, clams steamed open in white wine.
6:10 That sure is tasty bacon fat. Maybe I'll cook the celery and onion in that...
6:20 Add cooked veggies to the potatoes that have been cooked in the clam juice, scraping so as not to lose any of the bacony goodness.
6:22 A spoon of cream. One more. Ok, one more.
6:23 Handful of peas. Clams and bacon return. Lots of pepper. Salt. Taste. Salt. Taste. Salt. Taste.
6:24 This needs...
6:25 Yes! Can of smoked mussels lurking in the back of my cupboard. Just a couple of mussels. Maybe all of them. That oil is deliciously smoky; how about a drizzle of that? Might as well use the rest, small tin really.
6:27 Ready to eat.
6:28 Oops, forgot to butter the bread...
You Eat What?
I get a bit annoyed when customers in the restaurant are squeamish about where their food comes from. I can’t count the number of times, for example, someone has sent a whole fish back to the kitchen asking us to remove its head. (“The eyes! It has accusatory eyes!”) Listen people, most animals have a face. That steak your plebian friend asked me to over-cook (seriously, medium well?) had a face. Chicken breast? Had a face. Braised lamb? Had a really cute face. Confit pork belly? Delicious.
If I were to be fair, I would have to admit that there is a long culinary tradition of hiding the nature of some of the things we eat, so as to make them more palatable. Historically this has most often been done through clever naming. You’d probably be interested in trying “roast squab”, but wouldn’t think about eating a pigeon. “Pan fried sweetbreads” sound alright, but “veal thymus gland” not so much. “Tripe” makes “cow’s stomach lining” sound almost pleasant, while “trotters” turn “pigs feet” into something you might consider eating (and trust me, you should). “Giblets” are bird guts. “Brawn” is a terrene made from the meat of a boiled pig’s head. “Rocky Mountain Oysters,” or “sweetmeats” as they are called in the rest of the world, are testicles. Gizzards are a fowl’s digestive sack.
Then there is black pudding. Also known as black sausage, boudin noir, morcilla, or blutwurst. It’s a sausage made primarily from pig’s blood. It is also the star player in what may be one of the most disgustingly delicious and shameful midnight snacks I’ve ever had the pleasure of partaking in.
Let me set the scene. It’s after Friday night service and Yon, the other chef in the kitchen, and I have had a couple post-work beers in our changing room. “I’m hungry,” he says. “Me too.” “I have a plan.”
This was his plan:
Blood Sausage “Burrito”
1 blood sausage, sliced into medallions
aioli
rocket (arugula)
white bean humus
onion and balsamic vinegar jam
tortillas
Sauté the sausage. Warm the tortilla and spread with aioli, onion jam, and humus. Add the sausage, a liberal grind of pepper and cover with rocket.
That's it.
I’m not going to recommend this one for the specials board or anything, but I might add an egg and have it for breakfast tomorrow. Yum.
Pupusa
I get cravings. Post-dinner service, riding the train, waking in the night, playing patty-cake with my boy (Mmmm cake. Carrot cake with roast almonds and an airy cream cheese and candied ginger frosting…). Pull it together. My cravings must be, and usually are fulfilled. The problems begin when a craving and nostalgia collide. No. The real trouble starts when a craving has a head-on with nostalgia and is then side swiped by the unavailability of insurmountable distance. These guttural yearnings represent some kind of perfect storm of desire which is built around a positive feedback loop – their unattainability augmenting their allure, their appeal highlighting their inaccessibility. If, for example, you were to tell me that the man in the ash-gray suit and pathetically fat pink candy striped tie who is currently jaywalking just below my window was filled, like some living, savory piñata, with dozens upon dozens of roast pork and chipotle blue corn tamales with tomatillo salsa, I’d march down there directly and crack him in two, eyes closed, one half in each outstretched arm suspended overhead, mouth open, ready for sweet, earthy, masa delights to pour forth. Praise the lord.
Speaking of masa… I made pupusa. I first had this bean-and-cheese-filled-street-food-of-the-gods (and El Salvadorians) at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market from a mobile pupusería called (I think) “Pupusa Delmi.” The matronly server called me baby and gave me extra ‘slaw with winking and knowing looks. God how I miss them. Here’s my version.
Pupusa con frijoles y el queso
2 cups masa harina
375 ml water (approx)
1/2 cup shredded cheese, jack style or some other melty deliciousness
1/2 cup cooked kidney beans
1 Tbsp lard or (better) bacon fat
Mix the masa and enough warm water to make a wet but not sticky dough. Knead a few times and set aside to rest. Heat a small pan on medium. Melt the lard or fat and add the cooked, drained beans. Mash with a fork until they form a rough paste. Season and remove from heat. Divide the masa into 4 equal parts, roll into balls and then, in your hands, work into disks about twice the thickness of a tortilla. Place a tablespoon of the beans and about the same amount of shredded cheese in the centre of the disks. In the palm of your hand, form the sides of the disk into a cup around the filling, working slowly to avoid tearing the masa. Bring the sides of the cup together at the top to form a ball encasing the filling. Now, gently press out flat into a disk about 3-4 times as thick as a tortilla. Fry in no more than a drizzle of olive oil or (why the hell not) more bacon fat on medium-high heat until golden all over and dark in spots, turning only once. Serve with crudito (coleslaw), roast tomato salsa (both below), and sour cream.
Crudito
1/2 small cabbage, shredded
1 carrot made into ribbons with a peeler
1 small white onion sliced finely
white wine vinegar
salt
Place cabbage, carrots, and onions into a sterile jar just large enough to hold them packed tightly. Bring to a boil enough of a 50-50 mixture of vinegar and water to cover the cabbage mixture in the jar. Season vinegar mixture to taste and pour into jar. Seal and refrigerate at least a week. That’s right, you have to start this a week in advance. I just stitched you right up, didn’t I? Serve with fresh coriander leaves.
Salsa
4 large, ripe tomatoes
1 small brown onion, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1-4 red chillies, roughly chopped
4 Tbsp red wine vinegar
salt
Core the tomatoes and place them under a hot grill (broiler), rotating until the skins are blackened and blistered on all sides, about 10 minuets. Cool, cut in half, and squeeze out most of the seeds. Meanwhile, sweat the onion, garlic, and chilli* in a tablespoon of oil until they soften but do not colour. When soft, add the tomatoes and vinegar. Simmer until thick. Season and blend.
*Since different species of chilli differ in heat, as do individual chillies from the same plant, you have to judge the amount of chilli for yourself. We’re aiming for a salsa with a bit of kick, not something that will carbonise your teeth.
File under "Chef's Secrets"
An Introduction
The question, posed in a glossy, gastro-porn, food mag, directed at the ephemeral celebrity chef for our current month, is set forth in a sidebar labeled "Chef's Secrets" or some such, and reads thus: “What do you eat at home?” I, though neither ephemeral nor celebrity, have too been faced with the same question, as have all the chefs I know. The query is often followed by an answer suggested by the inquirer: “It’s probably just two minuet noodles or cold cereal or something, right?” Underlying this is a desperate desire to believe that no one can possibly enjoy what they do for a living – the last thing a plumber wants to do when he gets home is fix his own faucet, a secretary pay and file bills, an electrician change a bulb, a chef cook dinner. And, as if to satisfy this collective desire, the magazine chef du jour invariably responds that he or she rushes home to eat a packet of stale choc-chip cookies with out-of-date whipped cream in a can.
Bullshit.
Do you want a real chef’s secret? We eat like fucking kings.
So, here we go. What follows promises to be an incredibly incomplete and sometimes infrequent food diary, a collection of the highlights (and otherwise) from the meals of one hungry chef – namely me.
recent posts
